Hello everyone! I'm here to talk about the journey that I went on earlier today.

Last week I was asked by Ayame-Kenoshi if I would be willing to help distribute cards from the holiday card project, so naturally I said that I would, and I started calling my area hospitals to find out if any of them would accept the cards.

Eventually, I had to call UMass Medical Center, which is about a half hour away from where I live, and I got them to agree to take in cards. I was quite excited.

So yesterday evening, I got home from work and I found a package sitting on my table, and inside of it were 200 cards! I opened the box to make it sure was filled with the cards, then my mom and I took the time to look through all of them. There were some really amazing ones!

The assorted pile of 200 cards laying across my bed, I took the time to look at them and count them. And man, some of these were absolutely amazing, my mom and I were blown away by them.

This is a close up of a few of them that I received

and finally me with some of these cards!

If you recognize any of the cards as your own, let me know. I'd love to know who did these.

Then it was off to UMass Medical Center! I forgot to take a picture of the building I went to, but thankfully that is what the internet is for.

UMass is a huge campus across four buildings, but this is the main building where I went and dropped off the cards, it was quite the trip, but not as difficult to get to as I thought it would be. So then I went into the hospital, made my way to the Volunteer Services department where I met up with Jody, the woman who helped me to arrange this whole thing. She was so excited to see the cards arrive.

One last picture;

This one was taken with my cell phone, so its a bit small. but it's me standing in front of the Volunteer Services departing at UMass. I would have loved to take a picture with the woman, Jody, who let me bring the cards down, but she was camera shy, and insisted that I stand in front of the volunteer services sign instead.

Let me tell you, when I first found out that I had the opportunity to be part of this project to deliver cards to a local hospital, I freaked out in joy. I have been sending cards to this project for many many years now, and I had always hoped that I would be able to participate in it more.

Sadly, I am unable to deliver the cards in person, but its understandable why. There was't enough time for the required health screenings and shots necessary to be with any of the hospital patients.

It was amazing to be able to give cards out to one of my local hospitals. And I hope that in the future I will be able to work with both UMass Medical and the Holiday Card Project again. Its been a rewarding experience for sure!

December 20th, 2012 update

So, I was about to have dinner this evening when I got an email on my secondary email account, from one Michael L. I was curious about the email since it addressed me and it didn't seem like spam at all. I opened the email and it had the following;

Samantha,

Thank You for the Christmas card I received during my stay at MU hospital. It brighten my day and lifted my spirits.

Sincerely,

Michael L

You have no idea how much this has made my evening. I have been sending in cards for years with my email address, and this is the first time I've gotten an email regarding the cards.

If I am correct, MU Hospital is in Missouri, so this makes me happy that my cards are going out all across the place. I have also heard from Astralseed and Katara-Alchemist that some of the cards I sent in ended up in their hands to pass out.

Hopefully there will be more happy experiences for patients like the one Michael had. When you find out things like this, it makes the entire project completely worthwhile.

I hope more journals pop up, telling the card delivery stories! I've just finished reading ^Astralseed's . What a delightful read! Still have yet to find who delivered the card I sent off, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled

I can only hope so. I wasn't able to deliver them to the patients because there wasn't enough time to screen me and make sure I'm up on all of my shots. This hospital deals with all kinds of patients, so I don't want to end up compromising anyone's health who is already really sick.